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3 Haziran 2008 Salı

9th Week Summary Submission

Onur MENGIUD 514 Spring’08 IYTE9th Week Summary Submission

The Temporal(Time) Dimension

As we see in this article, although it is believed that matter of urban design is only three dimension, urban design actually four dimensional; being time. As Kevin Lynch observes, we experience the time in urban environment in two ways; “rhythmic repetition” (the hearthbeat, breathing, sleeping, hunger, seasons, tides, clocks and “progressive and irreversible change” (growth and decay, not recurrence but alteration) In this article we find out three key aspects of temporal dimension of urban design; “Time cycles and management of activities in space”, “Continuity and stability, “Changing urban design projects and policies”.

Time Cycles are based on natural cycles.(working and leisure time, mealtimes etc.) Cycles of activity are also grounded in the changing season including climate, temparature. Urban designers may deliberately exploit the changing day and the changing seasons to bring greater variety and interest to urban spaces. These add to the richness of the urban experience. Besides, light and ventilation may be consideres in this context. Zerubavel argues that much of our daily lives is structured according to “mechanical time”. We no longer, for example, rise with the dawn and retire to bed at sunset. Organic and functional periodicity are replacing with mechanical periodicity which is dictated by schedule, calender and clock. If these distinctions are eroded increasingly, it results in greater freedom, at least initially, greater uncertainty.

Mixed uses have generally been advocated on the basis that they create more life and activity in a location. While a key element of this is tha spatial concentration of different land uses, activity must also be considered in temporal terms. Urban designers need to understand activity patterns, how to encourage activities through different time periods and achieve synergies from activities happening in the same space and time. A widespread problem is lack of activity in the public realm during the evening and night (dead period) with few uses and activities to attract a broad range of social groups. “24-hour city” concepts are influnced by cities in Europe where they develop cultural policies to revitalise their urban night-life in 1970’s. There are also micro-management issues relating to conflicts between, for example, noise-generating activities (cafe-bar) and noise sensitive activities (city centre residential users)

Stressing continuity of place, as conservation was instrumental in the evolution of the contemporary concept of urban design, many current approaches to urban design attempt to respond to the existing sense of place, rather than a break from the past. When we consider the continuity of place, we should emphasize “social memory”. Rossi discussed the idea of a city’s “collective memory”, where urban form was a repository of culture from the past and for the future. Texture and monuments character and embody the memory of the city.

Involving interventions into existing place, the creation of new places, and management, urban design operates across a number of time frames-almost all of which necessitate a long-term perspective. While desingers may have a relatively short-term involvement in particular development projects, the created environments tend to be used over the long-term. In small scale, incremental change, “mistakes” are small and can be corrected relatively easily. By contrast, in large-scale development, every effort must be made to eliminate “mistakes” because they are much more difficult to correct.

In conclusion part, it is emphasized that the overarching need is for urban designers to understand the implications and impact of time on places. Time involves both change that happens in cycles and change that occurs in progressive, unfolding and irreversible ways.